Hello folks!
We forwent the camera and did some clean up to the frames. The upper deep had some bees building out comb and quite a bit of burr comb. The lower deep was PACKED with honey, brood and bees. In the middle of the lower deep last time we noticed this weird looking bubble in the middle of the brood. I did not get a good enough photo of it to really analyze it last time. It was the only photo I took this time. It does not appear to be any larger than before or have any change to it. We were just wondering what it was. (dead center of the photo)
(http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/352/img0433j.jpg) (http://img408.imageshack.us/i/img0433j.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
Hope all is well with everyone.
Queen cup :) What stunning brood pattern, BTW!!
This is a new hive...what should we do? The queen is laying just fine so I'm not sure I follow.
That could well be just an empty cup. You'd want to check to see if any royal jelly/larva in there. If empty, you're ok.
I shutter to think of how I'm going to do that. I'm guessing you mean to pierce the "cup".
We just saw the queen 12 days ago and saw larvae today...although she is definitely running out of room and there's not a whole lot going on in the upper deep.
Another question...how long should it take to inspect a hive top to bottom for beginners? It seemed like we were out there forever and started to tick the girls off.
No! If it's capped, don't mess with it. However, if it's unsealed you can look in. The hive may be looking to swarm. If were me, I'd isolate the queen, pull her and 3 frames of brood, frames of honey and pollen and start a nuc. This would cause the existing hive to raise their own queen/use the ones already underway and possibly stop a swarm (doesn't always work that way though).
Quote from: saritacoleman on July 01, 2010, 02:54:08 PM
Another question...how long should it take to inspect a hive top to bottom for beginners? It seemed like we were out there forever and started to tick the girls off.
To answer this question, depends on your philosophy and what you're needing to do. Once or twice a year I do a real thorough inspection which simply takes time if a large hive. Most often, my usual inspections are real quick: I'm looking for eggs/larva in good pattern, checking for ample stores, checking smell of hive (efb, etc), etc which often is done in just a few minutes.
Thanks for the advice lotsobees.
I'm not sure what we will do. We do not have the equipment for a nuc box, finding the queen was by finding her on a photo the last time. Even if we find her...how do we get her into a nuc box? Definitely do not want a swarm and are unprepared for that as well since we were told it would be highly unlikely in the first year.
I guess we have a couple of days to decide.
It's always something.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Sarita
Quote from: saritacoleman on July 01, 2010, 03:13:24 PM
Thanks for the advice lotsobees.
I'm not sure what we will do. We do not have the equipment for a nuc box, finding the queen was by finding her on a photo the last time. Even if we find her...how do we get her into a nuc box? Definitely do not want a swarm and are unprepared for that as well since we were told it would be highly unlikely in the first year.
I guess we have a couple of days to decide.
Sarita
No probs. Do you have another hive body you could start another hive with? I usually start looking for eggs and she's not far away--with a frame or two. Once you find her, pull that frame with her on it carefully and place it into a new box (nuc or regular size if you don't have one). Then, you want another 2-4 frames of bees and brood with her along with 2-3 of honey/pollen. Overall, it's real handy to have two hives going and extra spare hives/parts to give you options to work with in advance in situations like this which are common to beekeeping.
Nope...we really were not expecting this to happen this early in the game. We were considering a second hive but doing it next year. A neighbor wants to start beekeeping but was going to wait until we had a year under our belt so they are not prepared either.
How many days do you think we have to figure this out? Also...what happens if the cup is empty and I take some frames out with the queen?
Tricky....very tricky.
Quote from: saritacoleman on July 01, 2010, 03:30:43 PM
Nope...we really were not expecting this to happen this early in the game. We were considering a second hive but doing it next year. a neighbor wants to start beekeeping but was going to wait until we had a year under our belt so they are not prepared either.
How many days do you think we have to figure this out? Also...what happens if the cup is empty and I take some frames out with the queen?
Tricky....very tricky.
Well, if they are going to swarm, it would likely be around the time the cells are capped. The queen will hatch 10-11 days later. If cup were empty and you took queen out... that's not a problem at all if there are lots of bees in the hive and eggs present. They will select some of those eggs and make queens out of 'em. :)
Looking closer at that cell, it's not capped. You would likely be able to look inside. :)
its a queen cup built out from the comb and facing down. Nothing to worry about the bees do this quit often and is normal. looks like you got a good queen workin for ya.
Just like RR said this is normal, most all hives will have cups pulled out for "just in case".
I would leave it alone and forget about it.
with hive that big you could do a split, but if that's out of the question i vote for leave it alone also :-D most of the time the best course of action, especially if you are not sure, is to do nothing.
Thanks a bunch for everyone's input. If we had some more time under our belts doing this we might feel better about splitting the hive (and the equipment) but right now we are glad that it's normal and can be left alone.
You really set our minds at ease.
We like doing this...really...it's just you always feel like you are one step behind.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Sarita (and givemeone)
:-D
That is NOT a queen cell. DOUBLY, that is NOT a swarm cell. It is a queen CUP.
They can most always be found in a healthy hive. Ignore it and enjoy your bees.
"They can most always be found in a healthy hive."
Iddee, ya made my day!
Sarita
On the topic of queen cups....if the hive decided to use an empty queen cup, would they get the queen to lay an egg in it, or are they known to move an egg into the cup to make a queen (if they needed one)?....just curious. I see these in my hives all the time and they are empty.
Flying over my head but I'm curious too for future reference.
Enjoy the holiday folks...hope you stay cool.
Best,
Sarita
Hethen, It can happen either way. A queen will lay an egg in a swarm cell for instance, but with an emergency queen cell there may no longer be a queen and the workers must transfer a larva into it. This is one reason emergency queens might be inferior, the bees might only have older larvae to choose from.
Scott
Sarita,this is a photo of a queen cell:
http://www.vtbeekeeper.com/Images/QueenCellFrame.jpg (http://www.vtbeekeeper.com/Images/QueenCellFrame.jpg)
If you keep the sun to your back,you can tip the frame to see up the bottom of the cup. If they are going to raise a queen ,you will most likely see the white royal jelly up inside the cup.
Bees are prepared most of the time,in case something would happen to the reigning queen. That frame looks real good.
Buzzbee...Gotcha. Nope...what is on this frame certainly does not look like that.
Thanks a bunch!
Sarita
What an incredible brood pattern. You have and excellent queen and an excellent hive. I agree, it's a queen cup. First few times I saw those, I freaked out thinking they were trying to build a queen cell (which would mean either faulty queen or no queen, both heart stoppers for me). I called my bee mentor and he explained what everyone else has shared, it's a queen cup. It's preparation for an egg to produce a queen should they need it. My mentor called them "threat cells" to the queen, i.e. get to work or we'll replace you.
Enjoy your bees, they are fabulous. Wish I could say that all of my queens produce brood patterns like that.
good luck.
8-)
yes my new hive had them too bet they never swarmed, i like the idea of they build them just in case